I'll See You in My Dreams: An Arthur Beauchamp Novel (47 page)

On the surface Dermot seemed settled when I knew him in the 1950s, but he must have been suppressing a fierce trauma over the punishment he'd visited on Caroline Snow for speaking Cree. Somehow all the guilt he'd bottled up became uncapped. The signs had been there: his block, his inability to write about Pie Eleven, those two tortured pages of suicidal contemplation.

There was self-satire in the last sentence of his incomplete memoir, his greeting from “three hundred young voices in off-key choir, praising the coming of the Lord.” Now I saw self-disgust too. Maybe it was that image – the innocent, trusting choir – that finally propelled him to the river's edge.

But why the semen stains on those frilly pink undies?

A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song. Maybe that means it is futile to seek the truth. Only justice matters.

It has been a stressful week for this old farmer. He needs a dose of Blunder Bay, his own
angulus terrae. Happy is he who knows the rural gods
, sang Virgil.

I pull up in front of the Ritz's beer parlour – a loading zone, but I won't be long. Conway the panhandler appears out of thin air,
and before I have unclasped the seatbelt he is at the driver's door, opening it for me.

I make him an offer. “If you guard my car while I bail out of here, I will drive you to see your lonely probation officer.” He looks pained. “Alternatively, ten dollars.”

He lightens. “God bless.”

There is nothing much to steal in the open-top Mustang except a few garden tools: hedge clippers, a pruning saw, a trowel, a watering can to replace the one that our blind old horse, Barney, stepped on. Two sacks of fall rye seed in the trunk. I pocket the keys and leave Conway leaning possessively against the front fender.

It takes a few minutes to fetch my bags and a few more to raise the clerk. As she prints out my receipt I poke my head out the door. The Mustang is where it should be, outside the pub entrance, fifty feet away, but a bicycle cop has dismounted, a young woman, and she seems to be vigorously conferring with my security guard.

I am anxious to avoid a misunderstanding – might she suspect Conway is hovering about my car like a thief? – and equally anxious to avoid a ticket. So I grab my roller and suit bag and hurry down the street.

Conway parts from the officer and intercepts me, flustered. “I wouldn't of stole nothin' – I was only looking in the glove compartment, and she sneaked up behind me.”

“Don't you go anywhere,” she calls, leaning over the passenger door, poking around the front seats.

Conway hangs his head. “I hate to ask, but I think our arrangement was for ten dollars.”

Despite my better judgment I pay off my fickle sentry; he was at least honest about his snooping. But this bicycle cop is just as bad. With majestic effrontery she is digging through the glove compartment. A raw recruit, with the dogged look of the overly resolute.

I stride up to her, demand to know what she thinks she is doing. She ignores that and pulls papers from a plastic envelope showing the car is registered to Loco Motion Luxury Rentals, proprietor Robert Stonewell.

“My own vehicle is in for repairs. This is a courtesy car.” I lift my bags onto the back seat. “What is the problem, young lady?” An ill-thought-out form of address, but I am peeved.

She holds the envelope upside down and slaps it; two crumpled rolled cigarettes fall out. “The problem is I'm going to have your car seized so it can be gone over with a fine-tooth comb.” She goes back into the glove compartment and retrieves from its litter a plastic pill bottle full of what I take to be cannabis seeds.

I watch, dismayed, as her hand sweeps under the dashboard, retrieving a small hash pipe held there by the masking tape. It has a carved miniature gargoyle head. Passersby are gathering, cars slowing. “Car's clean,” Stoney had said. “I'll guarantee that with my dying breath.” My confirmatory search was careless, slapdash.

While the concept of Arthur Beauchamp being busted for drugs is laughable, my main concern right now is avoiding the snarl of rush-hour traffic and making the evening ferry. “Miss, how long have you been on the police force?”

“Not Miss. Officer, Officer Wong. Do you have some identification, sir?”

I let go. “You, Officer Wong, are way out of line. You have no right to ask me for identification and no right to search this car in the absence of probable cause.”

“I have very probable cause.” She directs my attention to the rear end, the decals.
We stand on guard for weed. Bad cop – no doughnut
. “Now if you don't identify yourself, sir, I'm going to ask for a tow truck.” Fingering the police radio at her belt.

By now a small, snickering mob has gathered. This fearless young constable is not going to back down in front of them, and I fear the impasse won't easily be resolved. There is no advantage to standing on principle, so I show my Law Society card. “Maybe it's best that you know with whom you're dealing. Arthur Beauchamp.”

From her lack of expression it is obvious that Officer Wong has not read
A Thirst for Justice
. I look about, exasperated. People are gaping from shop doorways, from windows. Pictures are being snapped on cellphones.

I abase myself by importuning. “Miss – I mean, Officer Wong, I'd never set eyes on this vehicle until a few days ago. It's obviously had many users. Take the suspect goods with you; I have no interest in them. Now I beg you, I must be off to catch a ferry.”

She holds the envelope to the light, looking for fingerprints, then slips it into a satchel. The container of seeds goes in there too, but not before she scrutinizes the newly bought gardening tools.

“What's in the trunk, sir?”

“Officer, this has gone too far.” I'm embroiled in a ridiculous scene – street theatre, stores emptying, cars stopping, people speculating.
What did he do? It's Mr. Big
.

“What's in the trunk, sir?”

The curious horde presses closer, sharing her eagerness to see what's in that trunk. Grow lights, maybe, decisive proof Mr. Big runs a major op. Even what is in there – two thick sacks – will look suspicious.

In the face of my silence, Officer Wong announces she intends to read my rights.

“I know my rights.” I get into the car and start it. She races to the front and puts her foot on the bumper. Several people cheer. “Officer 547 Wong,” she says into her radio, “calling for backup. Officer being menaced.”

I turn off the engine. I listen to the approaching sound of sirens.

I
'm slow to get going because of a myriad of misunderstandings (though it isn't clear what they are), and once again I'm in a desperate race to make the seven-thirty ferry. But the going is sluggish. I can't get this old car up to speed, and it dies altogether when I'm halfway down the mile-long causeway to the terminal. I grab my bags and run and run, but the
Queen George
is sounding its departure horn.

I fall back on my pillow, exhausted from my imaginary run, and become aware of a light-hearted honking sound, then sunshine streaming through my open bedroom window. I pry my eyelids open and see nuthatches exploring the trunk of a fir, snorting their nasal calls. The dream stays with me, vivid, Chaplinesque. Wait … that was not a dream. It happened.

My memory cells finally yawn and stretch awake, and yesterday's
opéra bouffe
comes prancing back. The street scene with the mulish, thin-skinned cop. Groans from the crowd, but a few cheers too, when the bags in the trunk turned out to hold rye seed. The hours spent wrangling with senior officers, their call to Garibaldi, to Constable Pound, to check on the existence and integrity of Loco Motion Luxury Rentals and Robert Stonewell.

I finally managed to reach Deputy Chief Joe Collins, who couldn't stop laughing. By the time the Mustang was released to me, drug-free, I had a bare half-hour to get to my boat. That the tank would run dry on the ferry causeway was foretold.
The fuel gauge exaggerates, so tank up early and often
.

I spent the night in the terminal with my suit bag as a mattress, barely sleeping, surviving on Cheezies and corn chips from the vending machines. The abandoned Mustang remains in the custody of the ferry corporation, for I have declined to retrieve it or pay the tow and storage fee.

Reverend Al was disgustingly charitable when he met me at
Ferryboat Landing. “Show him compassion, old fellow,” he said as he helped get my bags and tools into his car. I told him that,
au contraire
, I planned to strangle Stoney. After I showered and got some sleep.

It's already mid-afternoon as I pull on some country clothes. Framed in my window, Niko and Yoki seem like figures in a Constable landscape as they stroll from the orchard with baskets of plums. They spot me pulling up my suspenders and they wave. “Nice you sleep all day,” says Niko. “We work.”

There's no coffee and everything in the fridge is stale, or worse, so brunch consists of cornflakes eaten dry and an apple that I munch as I head off with my empty rucksack. On my way to the store I will pass by Stoney's. The Fargo had better be there, and ready.

Niko and Yoki are at our roadside stand, bagging up the plums for sale. “Bad night – no sleep, no car.” Niko has summed it up admirably.

I ask if they've seen Stoney or my truck.

“Sorry,” says Yoki, who is as thin and shy as Niko is plump and forward.

Tomorrow, Saturday, they will be off to Stan Caliginis's vineyard, his planting party. There's a ceremonial reward: planters earn a certificate entitling them, somewhere down the road, to a bottle of the fermented fruit of their labours.

“Free food,” says Niko. “Whole island come.”

“Whole island minus me.”

“Sorry,” says Yoki.

I take off. The sun is warm. When a warbler warbles, a bothersome aphorism returns:
A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song
. Maybe the solution is to stop inquiring, stop complaining, enjoy that song.

I find myself out of breath early on Breadloaf Hill. Four days in the city and I'm out of shape – rich restaurant food and lack of
exercise. It's too hot a day for September, my shirt sticking to my back. I pause, panting, on the Centre Road ridge, to take in the island's worst view: Stoney's scatter of rusting vehicles, engines, and transmissions and, next door, the Shewfelts, their roof already decorated for Thanksgiving, or perhaps Halloween, with a giant tethered blow-up pumpkin bouncing in the breeze. Gnomes and leprechauns cavort on the lawn.

They've built a ten-foot cedar fence to help shield them from what they term, in their plethora of bylaw complaints, “an unmitigated eyesore.” The fence hides the metallic exoskeletons, but the Shewfelts can still see Stoney's shack on its knoll, and often Stoney himself, nakedly urinating from the deck.

He is not there this afternoon, however, nor is repair job one, the Fargo. I decide upon reflection that is good news; it means the Fargo is likely on the road. The bad news is Stoney has again, unfailingly, converted it to his own use, or, as he calls it, test-driving.

The way is mostly downhill now to Hopeless Bay, with fold-out views every fifty paces of little farms snuggled into the forest, then beaches, rocky inlets, and islets. These scenes remind me how much I don't miss Ottawa. I haven't let Margaret know I'm coming, and I must do so soon.

At the Mount Norbert turnoff, the general store and off-kilter saloon come into view. Ten vehicles down there, none of them the Fargo. I have a shopping list of toiletries and foodstuffs, but first I must attend at the mail counter.

I pause at the message board: a new Kestrel Dubois photo. In traditional costume this time, with a confident smile, she is accepting a certificate. Tall for her age, light-skinned, no bust to speak of. I heard her parents on the
CBC
, frightened for their daughter, stunned by her flight to the West Coast. It was inexplicable that she hadn't called home; I listened in pain to their pleas for her to do so.

I turn to see Makepeace holding an envelope to the light. On my approach he quickly tucks it under the elastic band of a packet of letters and clamps his hand on it.

“These here are for your wife, and if she signed a Form A-31, I ain't seen it.”

“What nonsense are you talking?”

“She has to formally authorize you to accept her mail. I been lenient about this practice, but no more. The Postmaster General is tightening the rules because of national security concerns.”

“Don't be ridiculous. Her mail can't be left gathering dust – she's a Member of Parliament.” I bluster. “You could cause a constitutional crisis. She might have an invitation from the Queen.”

“I can practically guarantee she don't.” He hands me a Form A-31. “Her signature on a fax will suffice. Rule C-138.”